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Page 434
merely protected himself with his shield on the left, while his right arm rose and fell as regularly as if he were working a pump handle and with about as little aim. A man screamed; another fell.
"Cry quarter," Ian shouted. "You will be spared. Cry quarter!"
"Yielded," a man whimpered.
"Throw your weapons over the wall," Geoffrey ordered, "and get out of the way."
The offering of quarter, shouting the offer as a battle cry, had been planned to take the heart out of the rebellious castellan's men. In general the idea was a good one, but it had its drawbacks. Each man who yielded increased the crowd and blocked the space that Ian's fighting men could occupy. Nonetheless, the offer had to be made before rage and bitterness aroused stubborn resistance in the defenders. A body gave softly under Ian's foot and nearly overset him.
"Get the dead out of the way," Ian shouted at Geoffrey.
The boy was intelligent enough to know that his master did not expect him to lift the weight of a man and armor over his head alone. This was a "message." He slid back, past the crouching, yielded man to pass Ian's order to the men-at-arms who were now coming over the wall. They began to pull the fallen men out from under the feet of the fighters and toss them over the wall. One man screamed as he went over. The men-at-arms were not investigating the difference between dead and wounded too closely; if the body lay still and had weapons, it went over. Geoffrey shuddered, but he did not interfere. His business was to get back to his lord so that he could carry further commands.
The harsh order had another effect. Men who were slightly wounded and who might have fought on, showed an increasing tendency to throw their weapons away. Soon there was no comparison in the will to fight between defenders and invaders. For the invaders there

 
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